Email sent to Li Keqiang begging for help

2022-09-02

8 min read

FROM: [NAME REDACTED FOR PRIVACY]

SUBJECT: URGENT AND VERY IMPORTANT: victim of ill-treatment by the Taiyuan Police

DATE: 2022-09-02 at 13:17 (Beijing time)

TO: Mr. Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China

CC: Mr. Laurent Bili, French Ambassador to China, Mr. Philippe Righini, Consul general, and admin-francais.pekin-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr

Dear Mr. Li Keqiang,

I love China and I will never do anything to hurt the country which has almost become my second motherland.

Sir, please, I am begging you for help!

My wife always told me that I could trust Xi Jinping, that I could trust Li Keqiang, that I could trust the Central Government. That’s why I am writing to you today.

I believe her. I read what President Xi said in his books. He talked a lot in his various speeches about the rule of law in China. That’s why yes I believe her, I know I can trust the Central Government.

I need your help, urgently. If I had a way to quickly send this communication to the Presidency of the People’s Republic of China, I would. If the Premier’s Office has a way to notify the Presidency of China, please do so.

To the person who is handling the email communication of the Premier’s Office, THIS IS AN URGENT MATTER. PLEASE NOTIFY THE PREMIER’S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY SINCE THE TAIYUAN POLICE COULD SEVERELY AND CRUELLY RETALIATE AGAINST ME FOR ALERTING THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

PLEASE ALSO ALERT THE SUPREME PEOPLE’S PROCURATORATE. I tried to alert the Shanxi Procuratorate twice in the past but they, illegally according to me, refused to take my complaint because it wasn’t written in Chinese. I believe it’s my right according to the Chinese laws to report a crime in a language I am familiar with.

A copy of this email is sent to the Ambassador of France to China Mr. Laurent Bili and the Consul general Mr. Philippe Righini and also admin-francais.pekin-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr

Messrs. Bili and Righini, I am please asking you to notify through the channels available at your disposal the Chinese central government about this serious matter in which I was subjected to ill-treatment by the Taiyuan Police who tried to force a confession from me. PLEASE ASK THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT TO MAKE SURE I AND MY CLOSE FAMILY ARE PROTECTED FROM THESE THUGS/POLICEMEN WORKING IN THE LONGTAN POLICE STATION and possibly the ones from the Xinghualing District Police.

My name is [REDACTED FOR PRIVACY]. My Chinese name is 陆**。

I am French citizen and a foreign permanent resident in China. My foreign permanent resident ID card is [REDACTED FOR PRIVACY].

On August 30, 2020, I was brought by the Taiyuan Police to a location where I was subjected to ill-treatment. The ill-treatment was inflicted by, among other people, Taiyuan Police officers from the Longtan police station (龙潭派出所) that I have accused of dereliction of duty for a long time and now condoning racial discrimination.

I AM URGENTLY ASKING FOR WITNESS PROTECTION DUE TO THE ILL-TREATMENT I WAS SUBJECTED TO BY THE TAIYUAN POLICE DURING NIGHT OF AUGUST 30 TO AUGUST 31, ILL-TREATMENT WHICH CONTINUED DURING THE DAY OF AUGUST 31.

I am asking the Chinese central government to immediately suspend, if not arrest, the following 2 Police officers:
陈亮 (Chén•Liàng) 014590 (Position: 所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所))
王孝其 (Wáng•Xiàoqí) 016424 (Position: 副所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所))

Other Police officers might have to be suspended. For example, all of the Police officers who were present at the scene on the incident on August 27, 2022. One of this officer was also present during August 30, August 31.

Furthermore, there have been multiple various incidents in the Xinghualing district and I believe the ill-treatment I went through couldn’t have taken place without the approval of higher ranking police officers at the Xinghualing district level.

There has a misleading video trending on Weibo. It trended under the hashtag #老外未戴口罩进公园被驱逐# which received over 130 million views. It was also on Douyin (TikTok) from what I understood.

The video is about a foreigner accusing a security guard at the Longtan park in Taiyuan of discrimination for denying him entrance despite having perfectly valid nucleic acid test results.

I am the man in this video.

THIS IS A HIGHLY SENSITIVE CASE DUE TO THE FACT THE VIDEO HAS BEEN VIEWED BY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

Manya Koetse who is the editor-in-chief of WhatsOnWeibo updated the article to add my version of what really happened. I have videos showing the security guard not wearing his mask, or at least wearing under the nose which is de facto equivalent to not wearing, with plenty of people around also not wearing. It was never about the mask and the video which circulated massively is a misleading lie!

The video published online falsely claims that the incident was due to me refusing to wear a mask: it’s a total lie. The whole incident had only one cause: the security guard rejected my perfectly valid nucleic acid test results. In the first place it never was about the mask!

The video is extremely misleading because it gives the impression that the incident is related to wearing a mask or not but that’s the truth at all! Not at all! It was never about the mask but it’s about the security guard being a racist!

What I am going to say next is not a full account of the story nor is it necessary in chronological order:

Before the interrogation happened, I asked already the Police officers present in the interrogation room to immediately notify the French Embassy but they answered me that they were not under legal obligations to do so right away. I also showed them my carte d’immatriculation consulaire which I had to take out when they removed all of the items I had in my possession.

If I recall correctly, I might have even asked for the right to call the French Embassy but it was denied.

Starting around 23:00 on August 30, 2020, I was put in tiger chair. Follow this link from the website Human Rights Watch to see what I am talking about:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/05/13/tiger-chairs-and-cell-bosses/police-torture-criminal-suspects-china

At some point after midnight, I asked the Police to have the right to sleep but they denied me this right.

I kept asking for consular access but it was systematically denied.

I kept asking for 王孝其 (Wáng•Xiàoqí) 016424 (Position: 副所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所)) to recuse himself since I accuse this Police officer of having asked me in the past to delete evidence in what should have been at some point in time a criminal investigation and which was no matter what a Public Security administrative case. It’s about an assault in which I was the victim and which happened on October 10, 2021 if I recall correctly.

王孝其 (Wáng•Xiàoqí) 016424 (Position: 副所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所)) was the main interrogator. So the man I have accused of committing a crime back in October 2021 is now the man interrogating me. He denied having ever asked me to delete evidence. [Note not initially sent to the Premier’s Office: here is the proof that he lied and that he asked me to destroy evidence back in October 2021: https://twitter.com/LuShengqiao/status/1567053807745474562 and that’s why I didn’t trust him.]

My accusation is a serious accusation but it’s the truth. I attach to this email evidence that he asked me to delete the pictures before the 2021-10-10 incident and which are crucial proof that I had done nothing wrong on that day and that I was indeed a victim who should have been protected by the police. I attach 2 files, a shorter version and a longer version.

I believe the evidence I attach to this email is enough to at least suspend 王孝其 (Wáng•Xiàoqí) 016424 (Position: 副所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所)) immediately.

My legal rights, under Chinese law, for my parents to be notified of my arrest was also denied.

I was in the tiger chair, if I recall correctly until about 4:00-4:30 in the morning.

If I recall correctly, I wasn’t allowed to stand up or stretch my legs for 4 hours in a row from 23:00 to 3:00.

At some point, I started feeling muscle cramps in my legs and I was in pain. I begged the Police to open the device so that I could stretch but, if I recall correctly, they refused.

If I recall correctly, they said that the sooner I answer their questions, the sooner I would be allowed to leave.

I begged the interpreter to help me. Her name is Ren RuRu, a French professor from Shanxi University. She looked very distressed. For a couple of times, she wanted to stop translating and she was crying or almost crying. But the Police would keep, I assume, forcing her to come back to keep translating.

At some point, the physical pain due to the muscle cramps I was feeling was too intense and the Police finally accepted to allow me to stretch my legs a bit.

The interpreter made quite a few mistakes during the translation. For example she would keep referring to my father-in-law as “beau-frère” (which means brother-in-law) and she would also make a few mistakes with the numbers. I believe it’s due to her being extremely tired on top of possibly also being distressed about how the policemen were treating me.

After about 4:00-4:30 in the morning, I was released from this inhuman device. I wanted to go back home to sleep but they refused. They brought to a cell where they told me I could sleep.

In this room, I was chained/handcuffed to the ground. I had no pillow or blanket even though I felt a bit cold. There was no bed. It was a kind of bench along the wall. To be more accurate, I was chained/handcuffed to the bottom side of the bench. The design is made in such a way that you can’t realistically sleep on the bench since it’s a too narrow and the handcuffs are chained to the side of the bench in such a way that there is vertical pull downward. As a result, it exercises too much pressure on the wrist and it becomes painful even after a short period of time.

Furthermore, the Police would keep the lights on in the room I was supposed to have the right sleep. All of the 6 bulbs (I would say 25-40 watts LED bulbs maybe) in the ceiling were turned on. It was extremely bright, so bright that it was impossible to sleep. I believe that this sleep deprivation while being chained/handcuffed to the ground is another form humiliating and inhuman treatment, an ill-treatment and in a way a form of torture.

Around 4:30, they took my glasses away. They would refuse to return my glasses later on even when they kept interrogating me on August 31 in the late afternoon.

When I arrived, I could urinate normally. They even asked me to urinate in a small cup to do some tests.
But later on, I wouldn’t be able to urinate anymore at all and I started to feel extreme pain inside my body. I speculate that the prolonged sitting position in the tiger chair, 4 hours in a row from 23:00 to 3:00 and a total of 5 hours and a half if I recall correctly, might have caused some temporary health issues. I already started feeling uncomfortable before they brought me to that brightly lighted room where it’s impossible to get any sleep due to the strong light. A few hours later, I guess around 9-10am maybe, or was it earlier?, I am not sure since I was a bit disoriented, I asked to see a doctor or to go to the hospital. But I wouldn’t get any reply for maybe 5 to 6 hours during which my pain gradually kept increasing.

In the end, I was in so much pain that I kneeled down in front of the guard to beg him to allow me to see a doctor. I wasn’t sure he was understanding in how much pain I really was so I kowtowed to him and it’s only after this that 2 persons would finally come shortly later. I am not sure wether they were doctors or nurses, there was a man and a woman. I only talked to the man if I recall correctly. I think the man believed me. He then talked to some other people in the hallway but I was still be denied any form of treatment but the guards had finally allowed to unchain me at some point. Furthermore, the Police refused to bring the second French interpreter who by then had already arrived.

I was then brought to another interrogation room. I forgot if in the hallway they handcuffed me again or not, it’s possible but I don’t recall completely. In the interrogation room, which was different from the first one I had been into (if I recall correctly) I kept saying that I wanted to see the doctor. The interpreter was in the interrogation room. At some point, they brought in my father-in-law despite the fact I asked the Police not to get my family-in-law involved into that and to contact my parents in France instead.

The Police said that it’s normally forbidden for outsiders to enter the interrogation room but that they were making an exception. Therefore, the Police fully admitted that they knew they were breaking the law. In addition to that, they used my father has an emotional leverage I believe. I respect the Chinese culture and traditions and we need to respect the elders. I wanted to get my father-in-law out of this place as soon as possible. Everything I signed and parts of the things I said was done so under duress following hours of ill-treatment. This being said, I don’t really recall having admitted to any wrongdoing.

At some point, the Police asked me to delete evidence from my cellphone. They also wanted me to delete an audio recording and also delete 2 Twitter posts if I recall correctly and posts on Weibo also. If I recall correctly, it was 陈亮 (Chén•Liàng) 014590 (Position: 所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所)) who was telling me what he wanted to be deleted. I of course didn’t want to delete evidence of my innocence and/or evidence of the Police’s guilt but I had no choice. I had to get my father-in-law out of there because I care for him and these thugs/policemen from the Longtan Police station shouldn’t have used my family as a leverage in the first place, it’s a form of blackmail.

About the deletion of evidence in what’s now clearly going to be a criminal case, if I recall correctly, 陈亮 (Chén•Liàng) 014590 (Position: 所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所)) even pressed himself a few times the delete button after the evidence had been put in the “recently deleted” folder. He was careful that I not only delete them but go into the deleted folder to make certain that these evidence were deleted forever.

陈亮 (Chén•Liàng) 014590 is a terrible policeman.

He is a disgrace for the entire Police force. I believe the immense majority of Police officers are good people with integrity. 陈亮 is not one of them.

What surprises me is that he didn’t care about some other things I had posted. I can’t recall all of things he asked me to delete but I remember that many of them were related to the Longtan Police station. It makes me wonder whether he simply wanted me to delete what he thought might compromised him since he is the director of the Longtan police station? I don’t know. A serious criminal investigation must now take place.

Anyway, it is a very serious crime to delete evidence. Part of his job as a Police officer is to collect the evidence and log them, not to delete them; he has totally lost his mind! Now, it might be even harder to establish the facts. But I believe 陈亮 should be immediately arrested. So should 王孝其. And probably many other police officers.

Also, 王孝其 (Wáng•Xiàoqí) 016424 (Position: 副所长 at Longtan police station (龙潭派出所)) threatened to get my Foreign Permanent Resident ID card cancelled if I kept trying to get my fundamental rights, protected by the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, respected. He didn’t say it that way but it’s clearly what he meant. He clearly said though that they, the Longtan Police station, had the power to get my foreign permanent resident ID card revoked.

List of the main ill-treatments I was a victim of:

Hours in a row in a tiger chair without having the right to stretch my legs
Chained/handcuffed to the ground, no bed to sleep, inside a room kept extremely bright on purpose to prevent to sleep. In essence, the torture of sleep deprivation.
My right to see a doctor was denied for about 5 to 6 hours at least, if I recall correctly. After 2 doctors and/or nurses came, I believe they understood my pain was real but I wasn’t given any treatment whatsoever.

AGAIN, I AM URGENTLY ASKING FOR WITNESS PROTECTION DUE TO THE ILL-TREATMENT I WAS SUBJECTED TO BY THE TAIYUAN POLICE DURING NIGHT OF AUGUST 30 TO AUGUST 31, ILL-TREATMENT WHICH CONTINUED DURING THE DAY OF AUGUST 31.

I AM ALSO ASKING FOR MY CLOSE FAMILY TO BE PROTECTED, ESPECIALLY MY FATHER-IN-LAW. I DON’T WANT PEOPLE TO EXERCISE PRESSURE ON HIM, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY.

I BELIEVE EXTREMELY SERIOUS VIOLATIONS OF THE CHINESE LAW HAVE BEEN COMMITTED.

Again, I love China and I will never do anything to hurt the country which has almost become my second motherland. I sincerely believe that denouncing racism in China is necessary. No country in the world is immune to racism. When racism happens, the Police should handle the case according to the relevant laws and procedures. What I’ve experienced so far in Taiyuan is local authorities systematically trying to bury the incidents as if it had never happened. Then, when an incident like the one of 2022-08-27 takes place and trends on Weibo, the result is disastrous for the local Police since they must know they covered up many incidents in the past.

Personally, I know it’s not the official policy of the Central Government. I believe China is a good country and the Chinese people overall have a very good heart. But because these bad Police Officers now don’t want to lose their job, that’s why they subjected me to this kind of ill-treatment I tried to partially describe.

I want justice.
I want redress for what happened.
I will be waiting for the instruction from anyone who will contact me from the Central Government hoping that we can find a way to know the entire truth.

I was once told by people working at the Taiyuan Procuratorate Office that the Police should have systematically given me either a notice of filing (立案通知书) or a notice of non-filling (不予立案通知书) if it might be a criminal case, and/or a receipt of case (受案回执) (for administrative cases only).

But I was never given either a notice of filing (立案通知书) nor a notice of non-filling (不予立案通知书) nor a receipt of case (受案回执).

There is something wrong going on in Taiyuan. Something very very wrong.

Respectfully,

[NAME REDACTED FOR PRIVACY]
[NAME REDACTED FOR PRIVACY]
Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
2022-09-02 at 13:17

P.S. I can be reached by phone at [PHONE NUMBER REDACTED FOR PRIVACY] (preferred method for phone calls) or [PHONE NUMBER REDACTED FOR PRIVACY] (preferred method for short messages and/or iMessage)。 I also attach to this email my driving license with my current address on it.

Email sent to Li Keqiang begging for help

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